Sometimes, you just have to toast the end of the season with a drink that celebrates the intense heat of summer afternoons. What makes us feel languid is what makes fruit luscious. A cocktail that can incorporate the sweetness of those afternoons spent sunning on the deck lizard-like is be the perfect way to say, “Farewell,” to summer and “Hello there!” to autumn. It tastes pretty great, too.
Farewell to Summer
Serves 2
8 oz of blackberries
1 tsp coconut sugar, plus more for the rim of the glasses
1/2 freshly ground black pepper
4 jiggers of apricot juice
2 jiggers of Beefeater Wet gin
1 lemon
crushed ice
1 bottle of Fever Tree Tonic Water
Muddle blackberries, sugar, and pepper in the bottom of a martini shaker. Cut a lemon in half and slice two thin pieces. Set the pieces aside and squeeze the lemon into the shaker. Add apricot juice and gin. Fill shaker 2/3 of the way full with the crushed ice. Cover and shake vigorously.
Wet the edges of two martini glasses. Shake coconut sugar onto a plate and set the glasses rim-side down on the sugar. Spin the glasses and set back up.
Pour the contents of the shaker — with the cocktail strainer in place — into each glass. Pour half of the bottle of tonic water into each glass, garnish with blackberries and lemon, and serve right away.
See ya summer! It’s been real.
Sapid Cellar Door 